Force, Freedom and French Fries...

This is in response to my friend, Jam's post about the recently back-in-force Kashmir agitations..

I choose the 'simple yet straight-forward' reasoning.. "anything that is forced will give away, sooner or later.... ".. And after a point, people just forget the good things... they only have the lingering bad taste of 'force'.

Even though my (our) ego would not agree so easily, we should give away J&K to its own people. After all, every sane individual has a right to self-determination. And if that is what they (the entire state) wants, let them have it. (Well, the truth is that we did not deal with things the past 20 years - so, we are responsible if Kashmiri public opinion turned against India)

Ten days of curfew straight out.. what a waste!! There is so much of money spent on Siachen and in maintaining 'law & order' in J&K.. not to forget the huge amounts of military presence and resources burnt every day.

All in all, let us not waste our energy, prode, fervor, armed forces, resources and money on people that are thankless...

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To quote Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar of Swaminomics fame, "India has sought integration with Kashmir, not colonial rule. But Kashmiris nevertheless demand azaadi. And ruling over those who resent it so strongly for so long is quasi-colonialism, regardless of our intentions.

We promised Kashmiris a plebiscite six decades ago. Let us hold one now, and give them three choices: independence, union with Pakistan, and union with India. Almost certainly the Valley will opt for independence. Jammu will opt to stay with India, and probably Ladakh too. Let Kashmiris decide the outcome, not the politicians and armies of India and Pakistan."

Set them free, if they really want - let them win their way back to being Indians.

Bhaskar

PS: Read the rest of Swami's article here

PPS: Read the Vir Sanghvi's article too to understand how Kashmir is taking advantage of its special status and over the rest of India.

PPPS: Oh.. the french fries? do you remember how US forcefully changed the name of french fries to freedom fries?? well.. that has nothin' to do with the topic... anyway... I just added the fries 'cos it seemed to get the zing into the title ;-)